Certain appliances include water filter assemblies for filtering water. Water filter assemblies can filter water entering the appliances in order to provide filtered water to various appliance components, such as an ice maker and/or a water dispenser. Such filtering can improve a taste and/or an appearance of water within the appliances. Filter assemblies are also used as point-of-use or point-of-entry water filters.
Water filter assemblies generally include a manifold and a filter cartridge. The manifold is mounted to a fixed structure and directs unfiltered water into the filter cartridge and filtered water out of the filter cartridge. The filter cartridge includes a filter medium, such as an activated carbon block, a pleated polymer sheet, a spun cord material, a melt blown material, a chemical agent, etc. The filter medium is positioned within the filter cartridge and filters water passing therethrough.
Over time, the filter medium will lose effectiveness. For example, pores of the filter medium can become clogged or the filter medium can become saturated with contaminants. To ensure that the filter medium has not exceeded its filtering capacity, the filter cartridge or the filtering medium is preferably replaced or serviced at regular intervals regardless of its current performance.
However, mounting and removing the filter cartridge can be a rather difficult task. For example, current filter cartridges are frequently mounted and removed from an associated manifold by rotating the filter cartridge relative to the manifold. Thus, a portion of the filter cartridge must be accessible to a user in order to allow the user to grasp and manually rotate the filter cartridge relative to the manifold. Such exposed portions of the filter cartridge can be unaesthetic. As another example, certain filter cartridges are threaded to an associated manifold, and the treads must be carefully meshed in order to avoid striping the treads.
Accordingly, a filter assembly with features for quickly and easily mounting a filter cartridge to a manifold would be useful. In addition, a filter assembly with features for flush mounting a filter cartridge would be useful.